Justin Bieber took a teen mom to the American Music Awards last night -- his own. Yep, bet by just looking at the Biebs' hot date, you'd never guess that his mother, Pattie Mallette, was at one point even worse off than some of MTV's biggest Teen Mom head cases (cough -- Jenelle Evans, Amber Portwood -- cough). When she was roughly the same age her mega-successful son is now, Mallette was living in a home for pregnant girls, completely depressed after enduring years of physical and sexual abuse, and about to give birth to baby Biebs.

But today? Wow ... She's clearly come so, so far. She looks like a trillion bucks! And while her currently glam life is due in major part to her son's achievements, this is a teen mom who deserves a huge pat on the back for her own accomplishments.

In her memoir, Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom, Mallette writes about how she worked part-time jobs for diapers and rent, and eventually, with the help of a neighbor who paid for a year's worth of daycare, she slowly earned her high school degree, followed by college training in website design on scholarship.

If it sounds like a plotline MTV would salivate over for Teen Mom 3, it totally is! And it definitely seems like troubled reality teen moms like Amber Portwood could stand to learn a thing or two about turning their lives around from Mallette.

After all, look at her now. She's a pop prince's Queen Mother, who is, as her son put it last night, "beautiful" and strong! Not to mention that she looked like she could be Biebs' older sister! Not too shabby at all for a once "teen mom."

Check out the sweet AMA clip in which Bieber brought his mom up on stage and thanked her ...